Principal Project Governance Leader

- United States - VWR International; United States; A distancia; USD 180.000 - 280.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

Avantor is seeking a Principal Project Governance Leader to drive global PMO governance, portfolio management, and delivery oversight across all regions, business units, and functions. This enterprise-wide role governs a $150M annual Capex portfolio, standardizes processes, enables data-driven decisions, and ensures projects deliver the intended business outcomes and KPIs.

Remote role with 20% travel. You will partner with senior leaders to align capital allocation with enterprise priorities,

Descripción del empleo

The Principal Project Governance Leader is a critical global leadership role across Avantor, responsible for establishing, governing, and continuously improving the organization's Project Management Office capability across all regions, business units, and functions.

ROLE OVERVIEW

This role provides enterprise-wide governance across Avantor's $150M annual capital expenditure (Capex) portfolio, ensuring that the organization is consistently investing in and delivering the most strategically important projects aligned to enterprise priorities.

The role provides leadership across project governance, portfolio management, delivery oversight, project controls, and PMO systems to ensure projects and programs are executed in alignment with Avantor's global strategic objectives and capital allocation priorities.

Operating across a complex, multi-regional environment, the role ensures a structured, transparent, and standardized approach to Capex investment planning, delivery execution, and performance tracking. It enables senior leadership and global governance bodies to make informed decisions through consolidated portfolio insight, financial transparency, and clear visibility of risks, dependencies, and outcomes.

Critically, this role is accountable not only for governance and delivery oversight, but also for ensuring that projects achieve their intended business outcomes. This includes verifying that, upon closure at Gate 5c, projects have delivered against their original business case KPIs, benefits, and strategic goals.

A central focus of the role is driving global consistency, investment discipline, and value realization, ensuring that PMO standards, methodologies, and governance frameworks are applied uniformly and effectively across all regions.

Remote role with 20% travel

How you will thrive and create an impact

Global PMO Leadership & Strategy

Lead the PMO Governance function globally across Avantor, ensuring alignment with enterprise strategy and Capex investment priorities

Define and maintain a global PMO operating model supporting oversight of a $150M annual Capex portfolio

Establish standards and frameworks to ensure the organization focuses on the highest-priority, highest-value initiatives

Drive a culture of accountability, transparency, and outcome-based delivery

Provide leadership, coaching, and capability development across global and regional teams

Global Governance & Portfolio Management

Establish and govern a global portfolio management framework overseeing $150M in annual Capex investment

Ensure the organization is consistently prioritizing and executing the most important projects in the company

Lead global demand management, prioritization, and Capex investment planning processes

Support executive governance forums and investment committees in making data‑driven decisions

Ensure alignment between strategic priorities and capital allocation decisions

Oversee global resource and capacity planning across the Capex portfolio

Maintain a single, consolidated view of portfolio performance, value delivery, and dependencies

Project & Program Delivery Oversight (Global Execution)

Define and enforce global project lifecycle frameworks, including Gate 5c closure requirements

Ensure consistent application of delivery methodologies across all regions

Provide assurance oversight for strategic and high‑value Capex program

Monitor project performance against approved baselines and original business case commitments

Ensure projects are delivered not only on time and on budget, but also deliver the intended KPIs, benefits, and strategic outcomes

Validate that projects meet their original business case objectives at Gate 5c closure

Facilitate cross‑regional coordination and manage global dependencies

Project Controls & Performance Management

Implement an integrated project controls framework covering the $150M Capex portfolio

Standardize performance measurement across cost, schedule, scope, risk, and benefits

Ensure robust tracking of business case KPIs from initiation through to Gate 5c closure

Oversee Capex financial tracking, forecasting, and variance analysis

Establish benefits realization governance to confirm outcomes are achieved and sustained

Deliver executive reporting that clearly links investment, delivery performance, and value realized

PMO Systems & Tools

Define global requirements for PMO and PPM tools to support portfolio prioritization and governance

Enable visibility into the most strategically important projects across Avantor

Support automated reporting of project performance, business case KPIs, and benefits realization

Ensure data integrity and consistency across global systems

Integrate project, financial, and operational systems to support end-to-end governance

Information & Knowledge Management

Establish global standards for project documentation, including business case and Gate 5c closure artefacts

Maintain centralized repositories for PMO standards and